Guide of THE DEAD SEA

Dead Sea: Definition and Much More from Answers.com
A salt lake, about 397 m (1, 300 ft) below sea level, between Israel and Jordan.
It is one of the saltiest bodies of water known and is the lowest point on the surface of the earth..
The lowest body of water on Earth, it averages about 1, 312 ft (400 m) below sea level.
Its eastern shore is Jordanian, while the southern half of its western shore is Israeli; the northern half of the western shore is within the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War (1967).
The Dead Sea lies between Judaea to the west and the Transjordanian plateaus to the east; the Jordan River flows in from the north.
It has been associated with biblical history since the time of Abraham..
For more information on Dead Sea, visit Britannica.com ..
Encyclopedia Library > Reference > Encyclopedia Dead Sea, salt lake, c.390 sq mi (1, 010 sq km), extending c.45 mi (70 km) in the Jordan trough of the Great Rift Valley between the Ghor on the north and Wadi Arabah on the south, on the border between Israel and the West Bank (W) and Jordan (E).
The shore of the Dead Sea, historically about 1, 295 ft (395 m) below sea level but now some 50 ft (15 m) lower, is the lowest dry point on earth.


THE DEAD SEA

Dead Sea Scrolls: Definition and Much More from Answers.com
The papyrus scrolls and scroll fragments discovered between 1947 and 1960 at sites along the Dead Sea, mostly dating from the last two centuries B.C.
, containing passages from books of the Hebrew Scriptures and from apocryphal biblical books, as well as sectarian writings.
They are of great importance for reconstructing the compilation of the Hebrew Scriptures and for understanding Jewish culture in the era immediately preceding the birth of Jesus..
Britannica Library > Reference > Britannica Concise Dead Sea Scrolls Caches of ancient, mostly Hebrew, manuscripts found at several sites on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea (1947 – 56).
The writings date from between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD and total 800 – 900 manuscripts in 15, 000 fragments.
Many scholars believe that those deposited in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumr a n belonged to a sectarian community whom most scholars believe were Essene s, though other scholars suggest Sadducee s or Zealots.
The community rejected the rest of the Jewish people and saw the world as sharply divided between good and evil.
They cultivated a communal life of ritual purity, called the 'Union, ' led by a messianic 'Teacher of Righteousness.' The Dead Sea Scrolls as a whole represent a wider spectrum of Jewish belief and may have been the contents of libraries from Jerusalem hidden during the war of AD 66 – 73.

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Orion Center: Education
THE CENTURY OF MANUSCRIPT DISCOVERIES The 20th century may be characterized as the 'Century of Manuscript Discoveries'.
From the Cairo Geniza to the more recent discovery of the Bar Kochba Letters which date to the time of the Second Jewish Revolt, scholars have access to an extraordinary amount of written sources.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SCROLLS and THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL A century of monumental manuscript discoveries began in 1897 with the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, a repository of 10th through 19th century manuscripts written mainly in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Aramaic.
Two Scottish sisters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, first stumbled upon the Genizah and they referred their find to Solomon Schecter, Doctor of Talmudic and Rabbinic literature at the University of Cambridge.
The most famous of these texts include the 10th century versions of Ben Sira and a sectarian text known as the Damascus Document , which was attested also at Qumran fifty years later.
Nevertheless, despite the wealth of information which was brought to light by the Cairo Genizah, the most famous 20th century find is the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
This library of over 800 papyrus and parchment texts was uncovered between 1947 and the late 1950s.

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Jordan - Touristic Sites - The Jordan Valley
The Jordan Valley is a low-lying strip which cleaves down the western border of the country.
It is part of the Great Rift Valley , which extends down southwards into East Africa.
The Jordan Valley is divided into several distinct geographic sub-regions.
Its northern part is known as the Ghor , and it includes the Jordan River .
Several degrees warmer than the rest of the country, its year-round agricultural climate, fertile soils and water supply have made the Ghor the food bowl of Jordan.
The Jordan River rises from several sources, mainly the Anti-Lebanon Mountains in Syria, and flows down into Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), 212 meters below sea level.
It then drains into the Dead Sea which, at 400 meters below sea level, is the lowest point on earth.
South of the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley turns into the hot, dry Wadi ‘Araba , the "wilderness" or "Arabah desert" of the Bible.
People first started to abandon the nomadic lifestyle and plant crops in the Ghor about 10, 000 years ago.
Villages were built, water-harnessing schemes were implemented, and by about 3000 BCE, produce from the valley was being exported to neighboring regions.

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